A/N: Used Wikipedia as a source for the medical stuff you will read below. Also, fans of the 1992 movie The Cutting Edge with Moira Kelly and DB Sweeney will recognize a bit of dialogue. ;)
Ch 3: Lavender and Blaise
Ginny was on cloud nine. She had passed her Healing Board examinations with flying colors! She had graduated into her Healing residency! Tonight was the perfect chance to celebrate like she had not been able to celebrate in years.
Lavender Brown was marrying Blaise Zabini in what would be a truly societal wizarding wedding. She was not in the wedding, just a guest, but it was so formal she had fretted over finding robes that were formal enough. Ginny had settled on robes made of a pale purple, silky material.
She left her hair down and wavy and smoothed and shined it with a charm. She looked herself over in the mirror and decided she was happy with what she saw. She was going to have a blast at this wedding, particularly at the reception.
She wondered briefly whether Draco would be there. Looking like she looked and feeling like she felt, she would enjoy it if he were. He had owled her to wish her good luck on her Boards, but that had been their only contact.
She had done some ‘investigating’ and found out that perhaps she was quite wrong about Draco. After Voldemort had been defeated, Draco had made it his sole purpose in life to be completely opposite of everything his father had been.
He’d focused on running successful, ‘clean’ businesses and weeding out his father’s more sordid business affairs and cutting those loose. As far as Ginny knew, there was nothing bad about him, nothing left of the snot-nosed brat she’d known at Hogwarts.
*
Draco stood in the alcove watching the guests arrive. Yet again, he was a groomsman. He saw the silky red hair he’d been looking for enter and take a seat with her usual gang.
He kept his gaze on the wedding party during the wedding but he could feel Ginny’s eyes on him. He kept a grin on his face the entire ceremony.
*
“Draco!” he heard a voice call brightly after him. He turned to see Ginny running towards him across the reception hall. He smiled. “I passed with flying colors!” she gasped as she reached him, sloshing the drink in her hand.
“As I knew you would.”
“Thanks for the note wishing me luck. It was very thoughtful.”
“Yes well, I respect your trade for its difficulty and I thought it was the least I could do.”
The music started and Ginny gulped down the last of her drink. “I’d love to dance again, Draco.”
Draco nodded and removed the empty glass from her hand. The party went on for hours and by the end of it, he and Ginny had enjoyed many a dance and many a drink. They were laughing and falling all over each other. Draco had insisted they take a few shots of Firewhiskey when Ginny said she had never done one before.
“Let’s get out of here!” Ginny suggested with an evil grin as she and Draco were twirling around the dance floor. He stopped and she spun right into him.
“You want to?”
“Sure!” she hiccupped.
“But where would we go?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m just having fun and this-” she gestured around her, “party’s dying.”
“Right then.” Draco took Ginny’s hand and led her to the hallway. “Let’s go to your place.”
“Aw, that’s no fun!” Ginny pouted.
“We can hang out there, ok?” he said, knowing she’d be ready to pass out before long so he needed to get her safely home.
Ginny nodded grudgingly and Draco led her to a hallway where they apparated and arrived in the living room of Ginny’s flat. Draco looked around briefly. It was nicely decorated considering Ginny’s meager Healer-in-training salary.
Ginny yanked Draco’s hand and pulled him to her. “So, just what is it we’re going to do here?” she asked, desire flaming in her eyes. Draco’s pulse quickened. “Want to dance?” she giggled, and began swaying to music that wasn’t playing.
“Uh no, I don’t think so.”
“Oh Draco, you silly thing, please don’t think!” Ginny sighed, her giggled subsiding. “That’s what I like about the way I feel. I feel like even if I tried to think I couldn’t and I think too much and I think so long… and the world is spinning and spinning and spinning.”
Draco pulled away from her. He wanted her so badly but she was very, very drunk.
“Did you ever see a muggle item called magnets? They have two sides- one side attracts, the other repels. And you can push ‘em around and they push away and you push ‘em around again and… all you really had to do was turn ‘em over… and suddenly,” she stared at his lips and he began to back away.
Ginny followed him into the kitchen where he poured her a glass of water and one for himself.
She draped herself over his shoulders, murmuring incoherently, her soft, warm lips brushing his ear lightly, sending chills up his spine.
“Come on, Ginny,” he said turning to her and gently removing her hands from his shoulders, but keeping them clasped in his. “Not tonight, not like this.”
“Not like what? Not like me?” she lunged forward again, throwing her arms around him and he caught her. “I thought you fancied-”
“I do but Ginny, you’re sloshed!”
“What do you mean?” she giggled.
“I mean that you should probably go to bed.”
Ginny pushed away from him, wobbling, and flung away the arm he reached out to help steady her. “Gods! That’s just what I need- someone else telling me what to do!”
She let out a cry of frustration. “In case you missed it, I am throwing myself at you! I am tearing off my clothes,” she began to fidget with the back of her robes, “and you’re giving me a rundown on drinking do’s and don’ts!” Her temper was flaring. He knew it was the alcohol.
“Ginny, why don’t you just calm-” he began.
“Listen, I have six older brothers and a mother and a father and on top of all that, a Hermione! I get enough advice between that lot! You should leave,” she stormed.
“You’ve got this all wrong,” he began again, trying to soften her up.
“Do I ever. Pardon my surprise, but really, what a disappointment!”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Well look at you, God’s gift to the wizarding world- wealthy, handsome, powerful- revealed as nothing but a prude in wolf’s clothing.”
Draco eyed her, sneering. “You’re a lousy drunk.”
“And you’re a lousy date!” she yelled. Draco turned away to leave, then turned back to her.
“It didn’t have to be like this, Ginny,” he said gently.
“Get out!” Ginny yelled. Frowning, Draco obliged.
*
Ginny stumbled out of bed the following morning, still in her robes. She ran as fast as her wobbly legs would carry her around the apartment, shutting all the drapes to keep the bright morning light out. She wanted to go back to bed.
As she settled back in to her magnificently soft bed in the wonderfully darkened room, she heard a snap in her fireplace and looked up to see Harry’s head.
“Ginny! Ginny- aren’t you up yet?”
“Harry! I had a late night… what do you want?”
“You need to get to the hospital. I’m about to leave, too. Hermione’s in labor!”
Ginny moaned. “Of all the… all right,” she growled, throwing off her warm covers and lighting her wand. “I’ll get dressed and be right there.”
Ginny dressed quickly and hurried off to Helga Herdstrom’s Witch’s Hospital, a small birthing and witches’ specialty hospital. She found her family and Harry crowded in a small waiting room.
Ginny’s mother Molly ran to her, tears in her eyes. “I can’t believe I am going to be a grandmother… again,” she cried.
Her mom had been made a grandmother five times already by Bill, Fred, George, Charlie, and their wives. They heard Hermione’s painful cries issuing from the room they were outside. Ginny winced as she heard them mix with Ron’s moans of anxiety and, no doubt, fright.
*
They had been there for nearly an hour when a medi-witch burst through the doors, pulling a struggling Ron with her. “Sir, sir you must stay calm and remain here!” the witch said sternly.
Molly and Ginny ran to Ron, who was ghastly pale and crying. “Darling! What’s wrong?” Molly asked, hugging her youngest son to her.
“Blood… too much blood!” he screamed.
“There, there now Ron it’s okay. It is all part of-” Molly began, thinking he was just a nervous wreck because of the natural process.
“No! ‘Mione!” he gasped. “She’s losing too much blood! The baby is fine! But ‘Mione, she’s unconscious!” Ginny’s head dropped. She ran out of the waiting room and apparated home quickly. She ran for her Healer robes and bag. She apparated back to Herdstrom’s as though she’d never been gone.
Without a word to anyone, she burst through the doors into Hermione’s private birthing suite. There was a lot of commotion and yelling. No one paid Ginny any mind.
“What have we got?” Ginny asked boldly, stepping to the bed where Hermione lay and taking in the situation. There was a lot of blood, just as Ron had said. Hermione did not appear to be breathing. Her skin was pale and her lips were blue.
A medi-witch turned to her. “Who are you?”
“Sister-in-law of this woman and Healing Resident at St. Mungo’s,” Ginny stated, looking over the parchments the witch held.
“Do you know anything about birthing?” the witch asked.
“It’s not my specialty but we learn all aspects of Healing. What’s the problem? She obviously has an obstetrical hemorrhage,” Ginny noted.
“We also think she may be in puerperal sepsis, possibly with some remaining pre-eclampsia. Her rates are all over the charts,” the witch offered.
“Shouldn’t the pre-eclampsia have subsided once she gave birth?”
“Yes, but it hasn’t.”
“Isn’t anyone giving her air?” Ginny yelled. She turned red when she noticed the medi-witch at Hermione’s head giving a breathing spell, which did not seem to be working. At least the witch was trying, Ginny thought.
Ginny sighed and brushed hair off her sweaty brow. There was nothing to be done. Hermione had been bleeding too long and with her toxicity levels, she was not going to make it. Not to mention the fact that Ginny was sure she hadn’t breathed in ten to fifteen minutes.
*
It was over. Hermione Granger-Weasley was dead. Her baby boy, Sirius Harry Weasley, was beautiful and doing well. Ron sat quietly at the side of his dead wife’s bed, holding her limp hand. Ginny approached him after removing the bloodstained Healer’s robes.
“Ron,” she whispered. “Come see Sirius. He’s a doll!”
Ron didn’t move. He had stopped crying. He simply moved a caressing finger over Hermione’s brow. “She was so very brave, so very smart,” he sighed.
“Yes. She was. She loved you more than anything. She loved our family, she loved Harry… she loved your baby as well, even though she…” Ginny stopped, not wanting to finish the sentence. Ron nodded his head in agreement and kissed Hermione on the cheek.
“Where is he?” Ron said, gathering his emotions and rising. He hadn’t seen his son yet. He followed Ginny through another door that led to the room where newborns were kept while thoroughly checked by medi-witches. Ron joined the rest of his family in admiring the chunky, red-haired baby boy.
*
A/N: Please forgive me for the death... but someone had to die because of the title. I do love Ron and Hermione but I this was the way that made the most sense to me. I'm sorry... but I had to.
Ch 3: Lavender and Blaise
Ginny was on cloud nine. She had passed her Healing Board examinations with flying colors! She had graduated into her Healing residency! Tonight was the perfect chance to celebrate like she had not been able to celebrate in years.
Lavender Brown was marrying Blaise Zabini in what would be a truly societal wizarding wedding. She was not in the wedding, just a guest, but it was so formal she had fretted over finding robes that were formal enough. Ginny had settled on robes made of a pale purple, silky material.
She left her hair down and wavy and smoothed and shined it with a charm. She looked herself over in the mirror and decided she was happy with what she saw. She was going to have a blast at this wedding, particularly at the reception.
She wondered briefly whether Draco would be there. Looking like she looked and feeling like she felt, she would enjoy it if he were. He had owled her to wish her good luck on her Boards, but that had been their only contact.
She had done some ‘investigating’ and found out that perhaps she was quite wrong about Draco. After Voldemort had been defeated, Draco had made it his sole purpose in life to be completely opposite of everything his father had been.
He’d focused on running successful, ‘clean’ businesses and weeding out his father’s more sordid business affairs and cutting those loose. As far as Ginny knew, there was nothing bad about him, nothing left of the snot-nosed brat she’d known at Hogwarts.
*
Draco stood in the alcove watching the guests arrive. Yet again, he was a groomsman. He saw the silky red hair he’d been looking for enter and take a seat with her usual gang.
He kept his gaze on the wedding party during the wedding but he could feel Ginny’s eyes on him. He kept a grin on his face the entire ceremony.
*
“Draco!” he heard a voice call brightly after him. He turned to see Ginny running towards him across the reception hall. He smiled. “I passed with flying colors!” she gasped as she reached him, sloshing the drink in her hand.
“As I knew you would.”
“Thanks for the note wishing me luck. It was very thoughtful.”
“Yes well, I respect your trade for its difficulty and I thought it was the least I could do.”
The music started and Ginny gulped down the last of her drink. “I’d love to dance again, Draco.”
Draco nodded and removed the empty glass from her hand. The party went on for hours and by the end of it, he and Ginny had enjoyed many a dance and many a drink. They were laughing and falling all over each other. Draco had insisted they take a few shots of Firewhiskey when Ginny said she had never done one before.
“Let’s get out of here!” Ginny suggested with an evil grin as she and Draco were twirling around the dance floor. He stopped and she spun right into him.
“You want to?”
“Sure!” she hiccupped.
“But where would we go?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m just having fun and this-” she gestured around her, “party’s dying.”
“Right then.” Draco took Ginny’s hand and led her to the hallway. “Let’s go to your place.”
“Aw, that’s no fun!” Ginny pouted.
“We can hang out there, ok?” he said, knowing she’d be ready to pass out before long so he needed to get her safely home.
Ginny nodded grudgingly and Draco led her to a hallway where they apparated and arrived in the living room of Ginny’s flat. Draco looked around briefly. It was nicely decorated considering Ginny’s meager Healer-in-training salary.
Ginny yanked Draco’s hand and pulled him to her. “So, just what is it we’re going to do here?” she asked, desire flaming in her eyes. Draco’s pulse quickened. “Want to dance?” she giggled, and began swaying to music that wasn’t playing.
“Uh no, I don’t think so.”
“Oh Draco, you silly thing, please don’t think!” Ginny sighed, her giggled subsiding. “That’s what I like about the way I feel. I feel like even if I tried to think I couldn’t and I think too much and I think so long… and the world is spinning and spinning and spinning.”
Draco pulled away from her. He wanted her so badly but she was very, very drunk.
“Did you ever see a muggle item called magnets? They have two sides- one side attracts, the other repels. And you can push ‘em around and they push away and you push ‘em around again and… all you really had to do was turn ‘em over… and suddenly,” she stared at his lips and he began to back away.
Ginny followed him into the kitchen where he poured her a glass of water and one for himself.
She draped herself over his shoulders, murmuring incoherently, her soft, warm lips brushing his ear lightly, sending chills up his spine.
“Come on, Ginny,” he said turning to her and gently removing her hands from his shoulders, but keeping them clasped in his. “Not tonight, not like this.”
“Not like what? Not like me?” she lunged forward again, throwing her arms around him and he caught her. “I thought you fancied-”
“I do but Ginny, you’re sloshed!”
“What do you mean?” she giggled.
“I mean that you should probably go to bed.”
Ginny pushed away from him, wobbling, and flung away the arm he reached out to help steady her. “Gods! That’s just what I need- someone else telling me what to do!”
She let out a cry of frustration. “In case you missed it, I am throwing myself at you! I am tearing off my clothes,” she began to fidget with the back of her robes, “and you’re giving me a rundown on drinking do’s and don’ts!” Her temper was flaring. He knew it was the alcohol.
“Ginny, why don’t you just calm-” he began.
“Listen, I have six older brothers and a mother and a father and on top of all that, a Hermione! I get enough advice between that lot! You should leave,” she stormed.
“You’ve got this all wrong,” he began again, trying to soften her up.
“Do I ever. Pardon my surprise, but really, what a disappointment!”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Well look at you, God’s gift to the wizarding world- wealthy, handsome, powerful- revealed as nothing but a prude in wolf’s clothing.”
Draco eyed her, sneering. “You’re a lousy drunk.”
“And you’re a lousy date!” she yelled. Draco turned away to leave, then turned back to her.
“It didn’t have to be like this, Ginny,” he said gently.
“Get out!” Ginny yelled. Frowning, Draco obliged.
*
Ginny stumbled out of bed the following morning, still in her robes. She ran as fast as her wobbly legs would carry her around the apartment, shutting all the drapes to keep the bright morning light out. She wanted to go back to bed.
As she settled back in to her magnificently soft bed in the wonderfully darkened room, she heard a snap in her fireplace and looked up to see Harry’s head.
“Ginny! Ginny- aren’t you up yet?”
“Harry! I had a late night… what do you want?”
“You need to get to the hospital. I’m about to leave, too. Hermione’s in labor!”
Ginny moaned. “Of all the… all right,” she growled, throwing off her warm covers and lighting her wand. “I’ll get dressed and be right there.”
Ginny dressed quickly and hurried off to Helga Herdstrom’s Witch’s Hospital, a small birthing and witches’ specialty hospital. She found her family and Harry crowded in a small waiting room.
Ginny’s mother Molly ran to her, tears in her eyes. “I can’t believe I am going to be a grandmother… again,” she cried.
Her mom had been made a grandmother five times already by Bill, Fred, George, Charlie, and their wives. They heard Hermione’s painful cries issuing from the room they were outside. Ginny winced as she heard them mix with Ron’s moans of anxiety and, no doubt, fright.
*
They had been there for nearly an hour when a medi-witch burst through the doors, pulling a struggling Ron with her. “Sir, sir you must stay calm and remain here!” the witch said sternly.
Molly and Ginny ran to Ron, who was ghastly pale and crying. “Darling! What’s wrong?” Molly asked, hugging her youngest son to her.
“Blood… too much blood!” he screamed.
“There, there now Ron it’s okay. It is all part of-” Molly began, thinking he was just a nervous wreck because of the natural process.
“No! ‘Mione!” he gasped. “She’s losing too much blood! The baby is fine! But ‘Mione, she’s unconscious!” Ginny’s head dropped. She ran out of the waiting room and apparated home quickly. She ran for her Healer robes and bag. She apparated back to Herdstrom’s as though she’d never been gone.
Without a word to anyone, she burst through the doors into Hermione’s private birthing suite. There was a lot of commotion and yelling. No one paid Ginny any mind.
“What have we got?” Ginny asked boldly, stepping to the bed where Hermione lay and taking in the situation. There was a lot of blood, just as Ron had said. Hermione did not appear to be breathing. Her skin was pale and her lips were blue.
A medi-witch turned to her. “Who are you?”
“Sister-in-law of this woman and Healing Resident at St. Mungo’s,” Ginny stated, looking over the parchments the witch held.
“Do you know anything about birthing?” the witch asked.
“It’s not my specialty but we learn all aspects of Healing. What’s the problem? She obviously has an obstetrical hemorrhage,” Ginny noted.
“We also think she may be in puerperal sepsis, possibly with some remaining pre-eclampsia. Her rates are all over the charts,” the witch offered.
“Shouldn’t the pre-eclampsia have subsided once she gave birth?”
“Yes, but it hasn’t.”
“Isn’t anyone giving her air?” Ginny yelled. She turned red when she noticed the medi-witch at Hermione’s head giving a breathing spell, which did not seem to be working. At least the witch was trying, Ginny thought.
Ginny sighed and brushed hair off her sweaty brow. There was nothing to be done. Hermione had been bleeding too long and with her toxicity levels, she was not going to make it. Not to mention the fact that Ginny was sure she hadn’t breathed in ten to fifteen minutes.
*
It was over. Hermione Granger-Weasley was dead. Her baby boy, Sirius Harry Weasley, was beautiful and doing well. Ron sat quietly at the side of his dead wife’s bed, holding her limp hand. Ginny approached him after removing the bloodstained Healer’s robes.
“Ron,” she whispered. “Come see Sirius. He’s a doll!”
Ron didn’t move. He had stopped crying. He simply moved a caressing finger over Hermione’s brow. “She was so very brave, so very smart,” he sighed.
“Yes. She was. She loved you more than anything. She loved our family, she loved Harry… she loved your baby as well, even though she…” Ginny stopped, not wanting to finish the sentence. Ron nodded his head in agreement and kissed Hermione on the cheek.
“Where is he?” Ron said, gathering his emotions and rising. He hadn’t seen his son yet. He followed Ginny through another door that led to the room where newborns were kept while thoroughly checked by medi-witches. Ron joined the rest of his family in admiring the chunky, red-haired baby boy.
*
A/N: Please forgive me for the death... but someone had to die because of the title. I do love Ron and Hermione but I this was the way that made the most sense to me. I'm sorry... but I had to.
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